Mann has successfully silenced critics by using the process of suing as punishment. He run fleeing from any testing of him or his work. He has won nothing but decreasing support....except for that from climate kooks. Meanwhile he has freely defamed everyone including fellow academics, who have dared to disagree with him. Knowing that few reasonable accomplished people stoop to the level he seems to thrive in.

Thanks for the link. I haven't read it all, but have looked at the main issue and most relevant part of the judgment. Having done so, I think you are a little over-optimistic on behalf of the world of climate alarmism regarding the conclusions you have drawn.

1. Steyn was not a party to the hearing. The hearing was an appeal of a decision of a lower Court dealing with an unsuccessful application by the defendants to have Mann's case struck out (Steyn's co-defendants appealed, Steyn didn't because, according to him, he regarded it as a waste of time and delaying the case proceeding to trial). The only thing the Court was called upon to decide was whether or not the case should be struck out under the anti-SLAPP laws, or allowed to proceed to trial. The attempt to strike it out on those legalistic grounds was always optimistic, and has failed; that's all. Mann has won nothing, other than the right to go to trial.

The relevant part of the judgment is as follows:

"As a preliminary matter, we hold that we have jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine to hear appellants’ interlocutory appeals of the trial court’s denial of their special motions to dismiss filed under the Anti-SLAPP Act. Wefurther hold that the Anti-SLAPP Act’s “likely to succeed” standard for overcoming a properly filed special motion to dismiss requires that the plaintiff present evidence — not simply allegations — and that the evidence must be legally sufficient to permit a jury properly instructed on the applicable constitutional standards to reasonably find in the plaintiff’s favor. Having conducted an independent review of the evidence to ensure that it surmounts the constitutionally required threshold, we conclude that Dr. Mann has presented evidence sufficient to defeat the special motions to dismiss as to some of his claims. Accordingly, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings."

If you read those words carefully, you'll appreciate that they don't actually express an opinion regarding Mann's prospects of success at trial, merely that he has overcome the low evidential threshold necessary to defeat the anti-SLAPP claim to strike out. In English law we have a procedure whereby a defendant can try to strike out a claim on the basis that the case is so weak it shouldn't be allowed to proceed to trial, essentially because to go to trial would simply to waste the Court's time and would be unfairly prejudicial to the Defendant (I paraphrase). A case really would have to be pretty hopeless to be struck out on that basis at that stage. I don't fully understand the anti-SLAPP legislation (I don't think we have any equivalent in English law) but I imagine the hurdle to the plaintiff has to pass in order to be allowed to proceed is similarly low.

2. Steyn did join in the attempt to have the case struck out, but not the appeal when that application failed. I can't blame any defendant for trying to get rid of a case at an early stage, as that is the cheap and hassle-free option if it succeeds. I don't remotely think that justifies your claim that "it is Steyn who has made repeated attempts to have the case rejected on various legal grounds and has failed repeatedly. Like yourself, I would expect that, if he were confident of his defence, Steyn would be eager to have his day in court and get it over, much the cheaper course."

3. I stress again that I don't understand US legal procedures and therefore I am no position to state with certainty that your following claim is wrong:

"In a US libel trial discovery takes place during the actual court hearing and it is usually the defendants that shows by their own discovery that they had reasonable grounds for their accusations

Since the case has not yet come to trial, no discovery has yet taken place by either side. "

However, I would be extremely surprised if that claim is correct, and certainly in English law, such a claim would be plain wrong.

I should add that discovery is required in order to serve a number of purposes. Not least, in English Courts at least, is the ability of the parties to litigation better to assess the strength of their own and their opponents' cases. The rules are drafted as they are in the hope that, having seen the written evidence that is forthcoming from the discovery process, the parties might be more realistic about their chances of success and consequently more inclined to explore the possibility of settlement, without the expense and hassle of trial (and without thereby unnecessarily taking up the trial judge's time).

If US legal procedures really do allow the parties to delay discovery until the trial has commenced, that would be a very strange and inefficient way of proceeding. EM - do you have evidence for that assertion?

Mark Hodgson, EM has sourced his Legal guidance from the well known expert, Greg Laden. If you are suffering from a seasonal surplus of intestinal methane, Greg Laden's Wikipedia entry provides a list of his achievements:

"Laden has taught at multiple institutions, including, but not limited to, Harvard, the University of Minnesota, and Century College.[4] In 1999, when he was on the faculty of the University of Minnesota, he co-authored a study in Current Anthropology that found that the practice of humans cooking food evolved because it allowed them to cook vegetables.[2][5]He publishes a blog, "Greg Laden's Blog", on ScienceBlogs,[1] where he focuses on public controversies regarding multiple scientific topics, including global warming[6] and evolution.[7]"

EM "Since Steyn has gone to great lengths to avoid going into court, it is a reasonable assumption that no defence is possible and Steyn knows he will lose."

That is simply not true, as I posted above, Steyn wants to get to discovery, where the evidence is exchanged by both sides. Mann does not.

Steyn: "As I said above, I thought the appeal was a waste of time, and filed a motion to proceed to trial three years ago. Mann filed a motion objecting to that, a position the judge found “ironic“."

I think it's easy to draw the conclusion that's it's Mann who doesn't want to go to trial. Mann falsely claimed to be a Nobel Laureate three times in his deposition to the court, which at best shows he's an ignoramus and at worst a serial liar. He's also avoided discovery with Professor Tim Ball.

I don't know if he is a fraud, what I do know is that he used a hitherto unknown technique for Principal Component Analysis, which has been roundly condemned by eminent statisticians, indeed the "world expert" on PCA, Ian Jolliffe has questioned its usefulnes.

I'm assuming the judges will have to decide if he used this unique technique for PCA knowingly to get a hockeystick shape. There are plenty of experts Steyn can call who will attest to the both the novelty of the technique and that it will provide a hockeystick where there isn't one. It would probably be easy to prove that decentering of PCA is not used widely, if at all. They would also have Mann's raw data and code etc. They could also point out that the graph has been quietly dropped by the IPCC, and of course point to the number of papers that came before and came after the graph that didn't support the conclusions.

To be honest if I was in Mann's shoes, even if I had inadvertently used decentering for PCA, I would hesitate to go before a court to decide my innocence on the issue. And he won't, mark (if you'll excuse the pun) my words.

Why did the IPCC decide to throw the Hockey Stick under a bus, having featured it so prominently in previous propaganda disguised as technical reports?

Will Steyn or Mann be calling a representative of the IPCC into court as a witness, to explain why the Hockey Stick went from international stardom to the gutter? Surely someone from the IPCC can explain its fall from grace.

"Whether or not Mann’s work shows all that he has claimed is not the question, for the First Amendment protects robust discussion and debate of scientific matters and the freedom to express wrong-headed opinions in inartful ways. The Defendants believe the ClimateGate e-mails showed that Mann and others are willing to misrepresent scientific claims and distort evidence. Whether or not this is the best interpretation of the various e-mails, they are hardly the only people to hold this belief. At the very least, the ClimateGate e-mails revealed unethical and potentially illegal conduct, so it’s not per se unreasonable for some to think the e-mails could signify something more, and not defamatory to say so. The Defendants further believe that the various investigations into Mann’s work, including the Penn State investigation, were not particularly thorough. Again, they are not alone in this opinion. Even the National Science Foundation found Penn State’s review of Mann’s work to be lacking. The NSF review found no “direct evidence of research misconduct,” but it did conclude there were “several concerns raised about the quality of the statistical analysis techniques that were used.” That the defendants expressed these views in an particularly outrageous and inappropriate manner hardly seems the sort of thing of which a defamation claim should be made, particularly when involving a public figure. Again, at issue is not whether Mann’s research is sound — or even whether anthropogenic climate change is real (and long-time readers know that I believe it is). The issue is whether this sort of commentary actually rises to defamation. Those who are rooting for Mann — but love to call climate skeptics “shills,” “liars,” and (yes) “frauds” — should be careful what they wish for."

"of course point to the number of papers that came before and came after the graph that didn't support the conclusions."Name one.

Dec 26, 2016 at 1:40 PM | Phil Clarke

Actually, it is the Gergis Australia study, Joelle and her team have corrected the various issue and resubmitted the study and it has been reviewed and accepted, in the face of the usual denier unpleasantness.

Conclusion:"Overall, we are confident that observed temperatures in Australasia have been warmer in the past 30 years than every other 30-year period over the entire millennium (90% confidence based on 12,000 reconstructions, developed using four independent statistical methods and three different data subsets). Importantly, the climate modelling component of our study also shows that only human-caused greenhouse emissions can explain the recent warming recorded in our region."

Add it to the list.

Jul 11, 2016 at 10:46 PM | Phil Clarke

Phil Clarke, could you supply the list please? Gergis has proved that faked-up Climate Science can only be verified by other faking Climate Scientists.

Counting a large number of cow pies still does not make the cow pies more like chocolate creme pies, Phil, nor less like used cow food. You walk through a pasture and seem to think that spreading what sticks to your boots validates you in some manner.

Somewhere in here, one of the deniers refers to Steyn deposing Mann in court. Does this imply that the discovery is done in advance or on the day.

With all of Mann's data and procedures already publicly available and filed with the court there seems no point in going over it again. There is probably nothing more to gain.

Steyn, on the other hand, has published no defence that I know of (links please if he has published a defence) Deposing him may be more interesting.

Another thing that amuses me is that golf charlie denies the Hockey stick,. However, if you asked him/her/yx/apex/LGBT to draw the temperature curve for the last thousand years, gc would draw a hockey stick.